http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/20/un_gaza_inquiry_panelist_desmond_traversJUAN GONZALEZ: As we continue on the Middle East, we turn now to the legacy of Israel’s 2008-2009 assault on the Gaza Strip, which killed about 1,400 Palestinians. Last month, the chair of the United Nations’ inquiry into the assault, Judge Richard Goldstone, retracted his key finding that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians in its three-week assault.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post Goldstone wrote, quote, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document." Israel, with U.S. backing, seized on Goldstone’s comments and called for the United Nations to retract the report.
AMY GOODMAN: Goldstone came under criticism from his co-panelists who co-wrote the original report. In a statement, the three—Hina Jilani of Pakistan, Desmond Travers of Ireland, and Christine Chinkin of Britain—wrote, quote, "We] find it necessary to dispel any impression that subsequent developments have rendered any part of the mission’s report unsubstantiated, erroneous or inaccurate." They continued, "Had we given in to pressures from any quarter to sanitize our conclusions, we would be doing a serious injustice to the hundreds of innocent civilians killed during the Gaza conflict, the thousands injured, and the hundreds of thousands whose lives continue to be deeply affected by the conflict and the blockade."
Well, we’re joined now by one of those panelists, Desmond Travers. Colonel Travers is also a retired Irish soldier and peacekeeper.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
COL. DESMOND TRAVERS: Thank you. Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: For people not familiar with the Goldstone Report, tell us what the report says.
COL. DESMOND TRAVERS: Well, the report set out initially to investigate already existing reports of major military events of concern. And I have to say, we relied very heavily on human rights organizations that were on the ground before, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, and so forth. And we determined that there were about 36 major events that merited serious investigation. So, in a sense, each investigation was an incident in its own right, revealing—or perhaps not revealing—various crimes of war. And the sum of those findings showed a pattern of what might be described as excessive punishment on the population.
My initial impression as an office military soldier was that this was urban warfare in the modern sense, which, as a result, with modern munitions, was designed to take out existing Hamas infrastructure. No more, no less. But in fact, when we arrived on the ground, we began to see massive, massive structural, infrastructural damage. So, the question then about proportionality arose. So, essentially, our finding was one of disproportionate assault on the civilian population for the purpose of exacting a punishment on that population. And that was declared long before the mission started, in a doctrine propounded by senior military officers called the Dahiya doctrine.
There were other theories propounded before Operation Cast Lead, which gave rise to the legitimacy of protecting Israeli soldiers at all cost. Even such protections were going to endanger the lives of noncombatants. And this happened time after time after time. Noncombatants were targeted because they constituted, in somebody’s mind, a threat to military installations occupied by the Israeli soldiers.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, you were hampered from the beginning, weren’t you, by the refusal of the Israeli authorities to cooperate with the investigation?
COL. DESMOND TRAVERS: Initially, yes, we were. I have to say—and that’s unfortunate, and Richard Goldstone himself has said that—it did limit, if you like, the range of investigations that we could have done. But having said that, his very innovative system of open investigations to the public and his invite to Israeli citizens to come forward and meet him and meet us, both in Amman, Jordan, and in Geneva, was responded to very, very enthusiastically. And we got spokespersons from cities, towns, kibbutz, teachers, psychologists, victims, the mayor of one city and his entourage, lawyers and so forth. And they gave us a very, very thorough exposition of the consequences of the constant threat of rocket fire, which we duly acknowledged and condemned. There’s no doubt about that.
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